I’m not a huge fan of the Fighting type. It’s not my least favorite by any means. I’ve been a big supporter of it in Pokemon Go, despite the fact that it might be the most overpowered typing in that game at this point. But as someone who adores Ice types, I find it difficult to support Fighting types. They wreck my favorite typing without proving a ton of coverage to help protect my beloved snowy Pokemon. That said, I’m going to do my best to give this exercise my best shot, as there are some Fighting types I do like.

As I’ve done on previous Pokemon team/gym style posts, I’ll be sharing the six Pokemon on my team, along with their held items and moves. I’ll also be giving a little additional background into why I’ve chosen each of these Pokemon. Considering there’s only been one Fighting type on all of the teams I’ve done (and I’m not even using that Pokemon on this team), I’m forced to think about which six Pokemon I’d use when leading a Fighting gym. I’m not allowed to use legendaries per Todd’s rules, but even with that in mind, I think I have the six Pokemon I’d use pretty well set.

Breloom

Breloom might be one of the weirdest looking Pokemon in all of the different generations that have been released. It’s basically a kangaroo with a penis for a head. And yet, it’s one of the more amusing and useful Fighting types. Because of its Grass/Fighting typing, as well as Breloom’s Poison Heal ability, this Pokemon would likely be the bulky wall of my team. Yes, it may struggle against Flying types, but it has coverage for that.

Hawlucha

In my playthrough of Pokemon Sun, I decided that I wanted to make a team built around having Caterpie take out as many members of the Elite Four as I possibly could. Part of this strategy hinged around Hawlucha’s access to Baton Pass, Hone Claws, and Bulk Up, which allowed me to pass Caterpie boosted attack, defense, and accuracy1I got my speed boosts from Mega Lopunny and my defense/special defense/evasiveness boosts from Drifblim.. Were it not for this luchador owl, my strategy would never have worked. On this team, Hawlucha would serve as my scout Pokemon, though it’s got a trick or two up its sleeve if it needs to fight.

Poliwrath

Instead of using an Ice type on this team2As the lone Ice/Fighting type is painfully bad., I decided to give one the most underappreciated Fighting types a spot on this team. Poliwrath is overlooked in its own evolution line thanks to Politoad’s usefulness in competitive play. It gets overlooked as a Generation I Fighting type thanks to the Hitmons at the dojo and Machamp’s excellence. With the existence of Keldeo, it’s not even the best Pokemon of its own typing anymore. Oddly enough, Poliwrath serves the role as my team’s special attacker, as it trails only Hawlucha in terms of special attack. There’s some nods to my roots, both as a Gen I fan and as an Ice type lover in this set too.

Gallade

Even in a world where Gardevoir exists, I rather like Gallade as the end stage evolution for Ralts. Gallade is a surprisingly tough Pokemon to take out, especially once it gets rolling. And yeah, it’s not the Dragon killer that its Rule 34-overloaded counterpart is. But at the same time, it does alright for itself when fighting a litany of different Pokemon. I considered making Gallade my mega Pokemon, however as you’ll see in a coming entry, there’s a very good reason why I didn’t3And it’s not just because Gallade’s move pool for Fighting type moves is kind of lackluster..

Heracross

All hail the great and powerful Bug Pokemon. Heracross and Scizor made Bug Pokemon useful when Generation II came out, with Heracross being the offensive juggernaut to Scizor’s tankiness. As Heracross got a mega evolution in Generation VI, it brought to the table a terrifying 185 base attack to go along with not terrible defense or special defenses. It might not be the best mega Pokemon, but it — along with Scizor — is one of my favorites to use. Skill Link’s guarantee of max hits with multi-hit moves is frightening to come up against in a battle, so I felt like it had a natural place on this team.

Hitmonchan

My favorite Fighting type Pokemon is the anchor to this team. Though it doesn’t get a mega stone like Heracross, nor is it my Z-move Pokemon like Poliwrath, Hitmonchan’s versatility would make it the most fun for me to use. In my very first playthrough of Pokemon Blue4Circa age 12., I carried a team of Blastoise, Fearow, Hypno, Sandslash, Dugtrio, and Hitmonchan. I loved saving Hitmonchan for the end of battles because I could take out pretty much anything with its elemental punches. The same premise applies with this version of the team, albeit without an overreliance on Pokemon who just critical hit everything.

It’s been a few weeks now, but we finally got confirmation that a new main series Pokemon game — effectively generation 8 of the series — will be coming to the Nintendo Switch in 2019. Even though the entry-level games Pokemon Let’s Go! Pikachu and Let’s Go! Eevee will be coming later this year, I would argue that most long-time players of the series are much more excited about the next generation game than they are a game that is essentially a remake of Pokemon Yellow with a lot more bells and whistles5I feel like I’m an exception to this rule, as I think that there’s a lot of potential with the Let’s Go! games. That said, I recognize that my opinion is largely biased by the fact that I play Pokemon Go regularly..

There is, of course, potentially a lot to be excited for with a new main series Pokemon game. In the past two generations, we’ve seen The Pokemon Company introduce mega evolutions, Z-crystals/Z-moves, replace the gym system with the trial system, ride Pokemon, plus the addition of a new typing to create additional game balance. Some of these changes are for the better, some are for the worse, but the one thing that’s for sure is that the games will continue to experience change.

With that in mind, I thought I’d present five changes I’d like to see in the next generation of Pokemon games. Since we don’t know a ton about what’s coming in a true next generation Pokemon game6As most of the focus is on the two Let’s Go! games at this point., all of the items on my list will be what I truly would like to see added to those games, rather than any thoughts based off of speculation or rumors about the games found online. If the changes you’d like to see in a coming game aren’t in this list, tell me what you’d like to see in the comments.

1. Reintroduce Competitive, Non-Friendly Rivals

There’s a lot that Pokemon Sun and Moon did really well while trying to rethink how a core series Pokemon game should be played. One of the biggest areas where it fell short was Hau being your primary rival for the series. I get that he’s supposed to be this happy-go-lucky character whose story intertwines with yours as you’re going through the game. That’s great. Lillie is kind of like that too and she’s a great character. But you don’t battle Lillie. And she’s not the main person you have to battle over and over again while being presented with little to no challenge. If Hau was even a little competitive, it’d be fine. That said, Sun and Moon make beating Hau feel like you’re curbstomping your likeable little brother. No one wants that.

2. Revive the Gym System, But Not Fully

While there was a bit of an uproar about the fact that Sun and Moon replaced the traditional 8 gym system with the trial system, I will say that I didn’t mind it. The trials were (mostly) better at difficulty scaling than gym leaders were at their place in the game, so it was a bit more of a challenge7Particularly if you went into the trials blind as I did for most of my run through Moon.. The only problem was that the reason the trials were as difficult as they were was because of the SOS mechanic, which forced you to fight the trial’s totem Pokemon two-on-one rather than one-on-one.

From a nostalgic standpoint, I love the gym leader system. My favorite characters in the first three games — Sabrina, Whitney, and Flannery — are all gym leaders whose battles I enjoyed taking on. That said, if the gym system could be re-instituted where you have a gym leader you take on after completing a trial-style battle, that would be the ideal situation. It would certainly make for a more climatic encounter than the Captain-less trial in Sun and Moon.

3. Make Ice Types Matter

I recognize that this is 100% personal bias. I love Ice types. They’ve been my favorite type since Generation I. But good lord are they garbage defensively.

There was clearly an effort to try to remedy this with the introduction of Aurora Veil in Generation VII, but one of the major threats to Ice types — fighting type moves — has a direct counter to Aurora Veil in the form of Brick Break. It’s not a soft counter either, it’s the hardest of hard counters, as Brick Break not only removes Aurora Veil, but it also deals super effective damage.

So…how do we address it? Perhaps having Ice types resist something other than their own move type8Water and Bug come to mind here.. Maybe give a bulky Ice type an ability like Thick Fat which reduces damage from certain types. There’s also the option of removing the weakness to Rock or Fighting or pairing the Ice typing up with Fire as we’ve discussed before on this blog. Just give me an Ice type that doesn’t have to set up screens or get baton passed stats to death in order to survive.

4. Give Expansive Move Tutoring Options Before Part Two of the Generation

If you’ve only bought the original games in each of the generations of Pokemon9Or if you’ve only played Gen I., you’re likely only lightly familiar with what a move tutor is. The move tutor characters in the main games teach moves to certain Pokemon, either for free or at a cost. The massive problem with this mechanic is that you’re almost forced to wait until the second part of a generation of games comes out in order to take advantage of this feature. Sun and Moon were the main series releases that had the most move tutor moves to date, with 11 possible moves to teach certain Pokemon. Their follow ups, Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon, had move tutors for those same 11 moves, plus an additional 67 moves. SIXTY-SEVEN. Why. Why not have this in the original games?

While we’re at it, can we bring back the move tutor mechanics from Black and White 2 where you could purchase move tutor moves with shards rather than needing to rely on doing the battle tree? The battle tree is my least favorite part of Sun and Moon’s post game, as if I want to do competitive battling, I’ll just play online. I get that some people like the feature. That’s great. Don’t tie move tutoring to it. That’s all I’m asking.

5. Region Lock the Pokedex Until the Post Game

I can hear the rage coming from the internet now about this item’s inclusion on the list. As much as I liked Sun and Moon, the fact that I could catch so many Pokemon from previous games in the series made me care much less about using Pokemon from Alola, save for my starter, on my first playthrough. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, as knowing the intricacies of my team allowed me to beat the game (Moon) a bit more smoothly. When I did a playthrough of Sun, however, I made an effort to take only Alolan Pokemon as my primary team.

The major reason to this change of strategy was that I played Pokemon Black in the middle of these two playthroughs. Generation V forces you to use its regional Pokedex until you beat the main game, only then allowing you access to Pokemon that aren’t native to Unova. I truly think that this forced me to think more about my game experience, which made my run of Pokemon Black much more enjoyable. I’d love to see this brought back in Generation VIII, even if that means Pokemon I love aren’t unlockable until I beat the game’s Elite Four. While we’re at it, if we could have every Pokemon ever in Generation VIII without needing special events to get mythical Pokemon, that would also be nice (though likely very unrealistic).

What features would you like to see in a new generation of Pokemon games? Hate or love my ideas? Let me know in the comments.

As you can likely tell from the high volume of Pokemon posts I’ve done over time on this blog, I love the Pokemon series of games. One of my favorite ways to kill boredom while sitting at an airport is to play around on Pokemon fusion sites and see what inane monstrosities I can create to amuse myself.

Pokemon fusion sites take two or more Pokemon and mix their features together in order to create a whole new Pokemon. There’s quite a few sites devoted to this out there, such as Alex Osanger’s site, which is believed to be one of the original sites for this practice. My current favorite site10Read: The one my wife reminded me of the existence of. to play around with is Japeal’s fusion generator, which features Pokemon through Gen IV.

With the help of this generator, I’ve come up with ten of the funniest Pokefusions I could and decided to share them with all of you. These are obviously my personal opinion, so if you find one that you find hilarious, create it and share it in the comments of this post. I’d love to see what all of you come up with.

Honorable Mentions

Before I get into my actual list, I wanted to call out a few honorable mentions that came up when I was making these lists. When Japeal’s generator creates a fusion, the new Pokemon is named by making a portmanteau of the names of the two Pokemon in the fusions. For example, a fusion of Scyther and Crocnaw because Scynaw. In doing so, some great names occur. While the Pokemon designs for most of these fusions weren’t great, honorable mentions going to naming for:

Monster (Monferno/Cloyster)

Mario (Mareep/Lucario)

Hoooone (Hoothoot/Linoone)

Fartle (Farfetch’d/Grotle) [Pictured Above]

Mr. Cash (Mr. Mime/Whiscash)

10. Mr. Krow (Mr. Mime/Honchkrow)

Let’s lead off with the Psychic/Dark dual type Mr. Krow. This bubblegum bird caught my attention not just because of the opportunity to give a beard to Mr. Mime11And make him less creepy., but also because of how the tail feathers are essentially a lightened inversion of Honchkrow’s color scheme. It was between this and Fartle for the 10th spot on the list, but Mr. Krow gets the edge thanks to its pepto-colored cowboy hat.

9. Celekoal (Celebi/Torkoal)

Have you ever wondered where matcha tea comes from? The internet and science might tell you it’s from ground up green tea leaves, but in reality, it’s from the smoke rolling out of the body of a Celekoal. When the natural tea in Celekoal’s body is heated to a temperature of 212 degrees Fahrenheit12The metric system is for lazy people and people who use base 10. This is America. We don’t us….wait. We do use base 10? What the fuck? Next you’re going to tell me we use Arabic numerals. Oh….that too, eh?, the tea changes into a powdery smoke useful for making tasty Kit Kats.

8. Aeropix (Aerodactyl/Vulpix)

I have a confession to make. I hated all of the Jurassic Park movies. All of them. Ever. Even the original with the awesome music. Dinosaurs just aren’t my thing. That said, if there’s a way you could make a dinosaur cute13Spoiler: there isn’t., it would be to put a dinosaur head on the body of something cute. So I took the cutest Gen I Pokemon in existence and slapped the head of a heartless monster on top. And it’s…passable? If only Alolan Ninetales had a shiny form with purple tails.

7. Ledytortle (Ledyba/Wartortle)

At the bottom of Japeal’s fusion page, just below where my screenshots cut off, there’s a random button that allows you to randomize the Pokemon you’re fusing together. Ledytortle was the result of clicking that button a lot. There’s two things you need to know about Ledytortle.

It’s objectively horrifying.

I can’t take my eyes off of it.

Those two things, particularly when combined, mean that this bug turtle gets a spot on this list. If I had to deal with it, so do all of you.

6. Swadabra (Swalot/Kadabra)

We now go to a conversation at Game Freak’s headquarters.

Developer 1: We need a new Pokemon. What can we do?

Developer 2: Okay. Hear me out on this. What if we had Kadabra…

Developer 1: Okay…

Developer 2: …then dyed it purple…

Developer 1: …go on…

Developer 2: …and made its majestic mustache look like something out of a Hanna-Barbera cartoon?

Developer 1: BRILLIANT!

5. Hippotic (Hippopotas/Milotic)

Basically the same conversation in #6 happened here, only Pendelton Ward is doing the designing. That said, we’ve reached the point in this list where I start actually liking the random designs that were thrown out by the generator. This isn’t awful. I mean, the brown coloring isn’t ideal, but it’s not the worst thing either. Hippotic looks the part of a Pokemon. It gets bonus points for that.

4. Wurmdoom (Wurmple/Houndoom)

In a stunning turn of events, Wurmple made making this list really hard. It’s a testament to how well Wurmple is designed when nearly everything I fused Wurmple with that had an animal body looked good. Of all the Wurmple fusions I did, Wurmdoom was the most ridiculous looking, but it also grew on me like no other fusion on this list did. And considering there’s never been a dual type Bug/Dark Pokemon, this might be the result from this list I’m the happiest with how it turned out.

3. Waillee (Wailmer/Hitmonlee)

This is the sequel to Wall-E. It’s a whale that can kick your ass. I would watch it on Netflix14Which is like most people saying they’d see something in theaters. I don’t like going to movies..

2. Weepinckle (Weepinbell/Shuckle)

So let’s say you’re new to Pokefusions or you’re trying to show one to someone who has never seen them before. Where do you start? My suggestion is to put Weepinbell’s face on literally anything and you’ve got gold. Don’t believe me? Do you think Weepinckle is an isolated case? Here’s Weepinbell with Dratini. And Beedrill. And Togekiss. And Tyranitar. The constantly shocked look on Weepinbell’s face is wonderful. That said, the design and angle of Weepinbell’s face can look weird on certain Pokemon. And the number one fusion on this list manages to hit everything on the nose.

1. Shellcor (Shellder/Gliscor)

How is this so perfect? I mean, I get that it’s partly because Shellder and Gliscor are similar colors. And I know it’s partly that Shellder’s head isn’t terribly different in terms of size and shape from Gliscor’s. But come on. This is perfect.

What are the best Pokefusions you can come up with? Which of the fusions I shared do you like the best? Sound off in the comments.

Early last year, I had this bright idea to write a post talking about my favorite Pokemon of each type. That post, much to my surprise, was my 5th most viewed post in all of 2017. Fuck if I know why. But between that and my compulsive addition to having Poketube videos on in the background as I do systems adminning, I ran across another video that made me want to make a Pokemon based list.

One of my favorite Poketubers, Ace Trainer Liam, recently put out the video below wherein he goes through his least favorite Pokemon of each type.

As I did in my last list, I will not reuse any Pokemon on my list even if they’re dual type. For example, if Pidgey was my least favorite both Normal and Flying type15It’s not. Pidgey may be garbage, but I don’t hate it., I’d only use it once on the list, so as to make this list as diverse as possible. Additionally, since I made my last list, I’ve played through Gen V, but still haven’t had the chance to play Gen VI16As my life in the last six months has been a ball of chaos.. With that said, since some of those Pokemon do resurface in Sun/Moon, they may show up here. All images are courtesy Bulbapedia.

Normal – Blissey

Let’s begin with a Pokemon I detest because of how annoying it is to take down in both the mainline games and Pokemon Go. Blissey is the definition of a wall. You’re probably not going to get hurt by it unless you’re massively underleveled, but you’ll need to spend far too much time and far too many resources to beat it. Had Chansey never gotten an evolution, it would have been difficult to beat, but fine. Blissey takes the worst things about Chansey and cranks them up to eleven.

Sighs of Relief For: Zangoose, Watchog

Fire – Charizard

I can already hear the rage coming from the internet for this one. That said, as someone who played Pokemon Blue within six months of its release, then didn’t play another Pokemon game for nearly ten years, I ended up playing through Gen I a ton of times. This led to developing some very strong opinions about Gen I mon, of which I always felt that Charmander was objectively the worst starter. Yeah, Charmander itself was cute, but all its evolutions served to do was to ramp up the difficulty of a buggy game. I get that the anime made Ash’s Charizard a pseudo-god, but it just feels like they were compensating for something17See also: Charizard getting two mega evolutions when all other Gen I starters only got one..

Sighs of Relief For: Pyroar, Typhlosion

Fighting – Hitmontop

I understand Hitmontop is arguably the best of the Hitmon line. I get that it has a purpose in competitive battling. It’s a good Pokemon. I just hate it. It is one of the worst designed Pokemon to ever get put out by Game Freak. Just…why.

Sighs of Relief For: Passimian, Medicham, Chesnaught

Water – Goldeen

I understand Goldeen’s place in Super Smash Brothers as a joke Pokemon. I hate when it pops out of the Poke Ball every single time, but it’s still objectively funny. In the games, Goldeen and Seaking are not great. They’re outclassed across the board by nearly every Pokemon. So…why bother making the signature move of this weak goldfish a necessary HM to complete later games? I get that this isn’t Goldeen’s fault, but the fact that it happened further soured my opinion on a Pokemon that I wasn’t fond of initially.

Sighs of Relief For: Mantine, Feraligatr

Flying – Zubat

GO AWAY CAVE HERPES! I’M JUST TRYING TO GET TO THE NEXT TOWN!

Sighs of Relief For: Ledian, Mega Pinsir

Grass – Meganium

Gen II is arguably the best generation of Pokemon to ever be made18My ranking would be Gold/Silver > Black/White > Diamond/Pearl > Red/Blue/Yellow > Sun/Moon > Pokemon Go > Ruby/Sapphire. There’s only two things that make this statement one that can even be debated. The first is that the Elite Four just isn’t that good19A problem is shares with Sun/Moon.. The second problem is that Gen II’s starters are all hot garbage. I generally find myself abandoning whoever my starter is no later than Goldenrod City. I usually pick Chikorita because it’s the one I feel the least bad about leaving in a box. I know the Pokemon Center and Professor Not Oak will take good care of it. That way it doesn’t have to grow up into a Meganium.

Sighs of Relief For: Chesnaught (Again), Cradily

Poison – Tentacool

Zubat, but for water.

Sighs of Relief For: Garbodor

Electric – Luxray

Remember how on my favorite Pokemon list I talked about how a major reason I hate the Electric type is because of how cute everything is? Nearly every Electric Pokemon I hate is cute. Except Luxray. Luxray is a beloved Pokemon that I can’t understand the admiration for. It’s…fine? But people treat it like it’s a godsend to the Electric typing. Yeah, it has three evolutions. But so does Magnezone. Sure, it’s a lion, but lions are the worst of all cats20And I LOVE cats.. If you’re going to pick an overrated Electric type, just pick a Pikachu clone. Don’t talk about how Luxray is so great when it’s basically the Bernie Kosar of Pokemon21Decent, but grossly overrated by its fanboys..

Sighs of Relief For: Plusle, Minun, Dedenne

Ground – Groudon

It’s not that I hate Groudon. It’s an overpowered beast. That said, it’s one of my least favorite legendaries, from one of my least favorite Pokemon games, in a typing where I like a ton of the Pokemon. In the end, it was a debate between a legendary Pokemon and a bat with a ball sack dangling from it. Groudon loses solely based on the childish humor factor.

Sighs of Relief For: Gligar

Psychic – Spoink

Psychic has a ton of wildly divisive Pokemon. On one hand, some of my favorite Pokemon are Psychic typing, either singularly or in part. That said, some of my least favorite Pokemon are also Psychic typing. The most detestable of these is Spoink and its Sisyphan task of bouncing for the rest of its life otherwise it dies. I get that it’s a gimmick for an otherwise weak Pokemon. But…that’s just not how animals work. Just no.

Sighs of Relief For: Unown, Bruxish, Espurr22I have super mixed opinions on Espurr. On one hand, I love its evolution line and move set. On the other hand, THOSE SUPER DEAD EYES.

Rock – Onix

Look. I want to like Onix. I really do. It got screwed over in the anime. It’s the anchor Pokemon of the very first gym you face in the main games. But here’s the thing — it’s a disappointment. It’s bulky, but not as much as you’d think it would be. It’s faster than you’d think, but not fast enough to actually do anything. And it doesn’t hit hard. At all. Really after Gen I stopped having Wrap/Bind be trapping moves, Onix was worthless. Of all the Pokemon on this list, it’s by far the one I have the most disappointment with.

Sighs of Relief For: Minior, Archeops

Ice – Glalie

Despite what the internet might tell you, there’s no such thing as a bad ice type. Sure, they have tons of weaknesses and are often frail, but they hit hard and have some of the best designs in all of Pokemon. The exception is Glalie. Glalie is terrifying. How do you go from the adorableness that is Snorunt to…that? Throw in the fact that Snorunt also evolves into one of my favorite Pokemon, as well as Glalie’s horrifying mega evolution, and you’ve got literally the only ice type I can’t stand. There’s honorable mentions below, but it’s not close.

Sighs of Relief For: Beartic, Walrein

Bug – Ledian

Has anyone ever beat a Pokemon game with a Ledian on their team? I can justify using almost any Pokemon in game23Though Gen II does have some rough Pokemon base stat wise., but Ledian is one of those rare exceptions that I can’t see any use for. I mean, I guess maybe you could use Iron Fist Ledian with Mach Punch, Ice Punch, Thunder Punch, and Focus Punch. But at that point, why not use Hitmonchan?

Sighs of Relief For: Armaldo, Buzzwole

Dragon – Haxorus

I know a lot of people hate Lickilicky, but the real worst name in Pokemon belongs to Haxorus. I’m sure it’s a fine Pokemon in battle. But between its disappointing design and its horrendous name, I’m never going to use it.

Sighs of Relief For: Turtanor, Guzzlord

Ghost – Gengar

I recognize that this bias is 100% is due to my Gen I and Gen II experience with Gengar. There’s just so many other Ghost Pokemon I’d use than Gengar, even though I know full well that Mega Gengar is an awesome. Maybe it’s because I couldn’t get one of my own as a kid because I had no friends to trade with24Thank god for the GTS.. Maybe it’s because I just preferred Haunter because of its appearances in the anime. Regardless, I just don’t care about Gengar.

Sighs of Relief For: Trevenant, Alolan Marowak

Dark – Shiftry

How is this a Dark type? Really though. I don’t get it. I mean, it’s clearly a Grass type. But how isn’t this Grass/Fighting? I understand that it would have been inferior to Breloom within its own generation, but I don’t care. Of all of the Pokemon types that don’t make sense, this one frustrates me the most.

Sighs of Relief For: Mightyena, Stunky

Steel – Klefki

Very much like the Ice and Ground types, there aren’t that many Steel types I actually dislike. I’m just indifferent about them. Skarmory and Magnezone are great, and Metagross and Aegislash are powerful as all hell. Beyond that though, I genuinely don’t care strongly about any Steel types. Klefki gets this spot solely because of how tired I got of seeing it as a Spikes setter when battling online in Pokemon Moon.

Sighs of Relief For: Bronzong, Forretress

Fairy – Azurill

I get why baby Pokemon were implemented in the games. There needed to be something more to the breeding system than just passing down broken moves for competitive battling. That said, Azurill is bar none the worst baby Pokemon out there. It constantly looks like it’s going to cry. I get that I’m not the target market for this Pokemon, but why release just a sad looking Pokemon as one of the first you reveal for a new generation? Gen III was terrible.

I haven’t been in the mood to write fiction lately. Really, I haven’t been in the mood to write a whole lot of anything25For context, I wrote this post back at the end of November. I was struggling to write ANYTHING at that point. I just didn’t post this until now because other stuff took precedence.. That’s not to say I’m not writing. I’m writing plenty for work. I wrote a 35+ page outline for my next story project that only one set of eyes besides my own has seen. But I just haven’t felt like writing.

At the same time, I’ve been watching/listening to a ton of videos on YouTube. While some of those videos have been for the aforementioned writing project, a large portion of them have been video game videos — in particular Pokemon and Madden 18 videos. As I mentioned in a few of my previous posts, I like taking concepts from Poketube posts and trying to write them up to see how I’d answer them, albeit in non-video format26I did the whole “let’s talk on YouTube about things” gig. It wasn’t my thing. Podcasting, on the other hand, I really loved..

This post was inspired by a pair of videos, the first of which is a video from a Poketuber named Ace Trainer Liam. His form fight series is one of my favorite series to watch on YouTube, however the premise of this post follows the video below.

As the video indicates, the four components of my post are to be as follows:

What trainer class would you be?

How many Pokemon would you have on your team and why would you have that many Pokemon?

What Pokemon would you have and why?

What would their moves/abilities/etc be?

You’ll notice that I took a slight deviation from the original format in the post, if only because I believe the idea of why I have a certain number of Pokemon on my team is less interesting than the Pokemon themselves. So, let’s get right to it.

What trainer class would you be?

To make a relatively accurate estimation of what trainer class I’d be, I needed a better understanding of all of the various trainer classes in the Pokemon games. I’ve played a high percentage of the main story games at least in part, though there’s a few generations I haven’t played all the way through27I’ve played about 50% through both Gen IV and Gen V, while I haven’t played Gen VI at all. to know every trainer class that’s out there. As such, I relied on a series of videos made by one of my favorite Poketubers, TamashiiHiroka to gain a better understanding of the various classes. The video below is long, however, you can just watch from about 1:37 to 2:05 to hear about the class I picked.

This video is the third of three videos talking about all of the trainer classes. Watching all three videos led me to realize there’s so many more Pokemon trainer classes than I thought there were. I was originally debating between the Ace Trainer/Veteran28A class featured in the first video in the series. class and Pokemon Ranger, however I ultimately landed on the Pokemon Ranger class as my choice. It’s a relatively flexible class, which I like as I tend to have pretty fluid teams. Rangers tend to be protective of Pokemon, both wild and not, as well as other trainers. Considering the fact that I’ve gone out of my way to avoid hitting even the smallest animals while driving — as well as the fact that I’m pretty protective of people I’ve trained at my job (especially when they’re newer) — I think this class makes a lot of sense for me.

How many Pokemon are on your team and why?

Six. The answer here is always six in my mind. While trainers in the game don’t always carry six Pokemon, I feel obligated to do so, as it’s rare that I make it to the first gym of a Pokemon game without a full team of six Pokemon. So that’s what I’m doing.

What Pokemon would you have and why?

I’ve decided to pick the six Pokemon I enjoy battling with the most in the main series games rather than any other specific Pokemon types. By doing this, I’m leaving off some of my favorite Pokemon29Alolan Vulpix/Ninetales remains one of my favorites in so many ways, but it just misses the cut off here., as well as Pokemon I’d use if I were creating an all-generations Pokemon team30Jynx was the hardest cut from this team., and even Pokemon with my favorite gimmicks in the game. That said, I present to you the six Pokemon that’d be on this team, as well as why.

Toxapex
Along with Chandelure, Toxapex was my favorite Pokemon to use in Pokemon Moon to run around Poni Island with to level up my lower level Pokemon for evolving. It’s the tankiest of tanks, particularly if it has time to get set up, and manages to be one of the few Poison Pokemon I’ve ever carried on my team for the majority of a main series game.

Hypno
As a kid, I didn’t have friends to play Pokemon with. Since the Psychic type was broken as hell in Red/Blue and my lack of friends meant no access to Alakazam, Hypno was regularly my difficult Pokemon killer. Though I tried using Hypno again in later generation games — with little success — this spot is a throwback to a time where I made due in Pokemon with what I could find.

Sylveon
I love the versitility of the Eevee line, particularly when the Eeveelutions can do things you wouldn’t expect them to do. Prior to Gen VII, I didn’t realize that Sylveon’s hidden ability was Pixilate, which converts Normal type moves to Fairy type moves. This opened up a new world for me, making Sylveon the Eeveelution I have the most fun battling with…even if I do love Vaporeon the most.

Scizor
Hi. I’m a bug and I’m broken as hell. Scizor was the first Pokemon I learned any sort of competitive Pokemon strategy with and, though I don’t battle online often, it’s almost always on my teams as a result. My in-game Pokemon Ranger trainer would use the non-Mega Scizor version that I learned first, though I tend to go between the set you’ll see below and a Mega Scizor set somewhat commonly, depending on which Scizor I want to bring in.

Chandelure
This spot almost went to Tsareena or Victreebel, as the Pokemon Ranger class historically carried at least one Grass type Pokemon with them. That said, I generally don’t carry Grass types aside from using Cut and the ones I do carry (Parasect, Venusaur, Lilligant) aren’t ones I really like fighting with. Instead, I went with the ghostly chandelier and all the chaos I can cause with it. Oddly enough, I run a relatively similar setup to what Ace Trainer Liam runs in the video at the top of the post, though with some differences you’ll see in the next section.

ArticunoI don’t care that Articuno is garbage competitively. It’s my favorite legendary and I love using it in the main games. A bit earlier this year, I managed to complete the Pokedex in a Pokemon game for the first time ever, which involved me trading away an Articuno for Tapu Lele to fill my next to last slot. It made me a little sad to do so, but the bird of the North is showing up on my team here to make up for it.

What would your team’s moves/abilities/etc be?

For each Pokemon below, I’ve listed a name, gender, ability, nature, held item, and moveset I’d have them use on my team. Names come from what I’ve actually named these Pokemon in game. I’m not picky about natures when I actually play, but since I’m putting together a full team for this exercise, I figure why not. Links go out to Bulbapedia if you want to learn more about these Pokemon/their moves/whatever.